Velar Approximant

The voiced velar approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is M\.

The consonant is not present in English, but approximates to the sound of a 'g' with the throat kept open, or like making a 'w' sound without the lips touching. The voiced velar approximant can in many cases be considered the semivocalic counterpart of the close back unrounded vowel . and with the non-syllabic diacritic are used in different transcription systems to represent the same sound.

In some languages, such as Spanish, the voiced velar approximant appears as an allophone of – see below.

The symbol for the velar approximant originates from , but with a vertical line. Compare and for the labio-palatal approximant.

Features

Features of the voiced velar approximant:

The most common type of this approximant is ''glide'' or ''semivowel''. The term ''glide'' emphasizes the characteristic of movement (or 'glide') of from the vowel position to a following vowel position. The term ''semivowel'' emphasizes that, although the sound is vocalic in nature, it is not 'syllabic' (it does not form the nucleus of a syllable). For a description of the ''approximant consonant'' variant used e.g. in Spanish, see below.

Occurrence

Pre-velar

Voiced velar bunched approximant

Some languages have a velar approximant that is produced with the body of the tongue bunched up at the velum and simultaneous pharyngealization. This gives rise to a type of retroflex resonance resembling . The extension to the IPA recommends the use of the "centralized" diacritic combined with the IPA sign for the alveolar approximant (as in ) to distinguish the bunched realization from the prototypical apical , which may be specified as . Typically, the diacritic is omitted, so that the sound is transcribed simply with or (in broader transcriptions: ), as if it were a coronal consonant.

In ordinary IPA, this sound can be transcribed with or , depending on whether it can be labialized (see below). This captures pharyngealization (uncommon in velar approximants) but not bunching of the tongue, which can be transcribed by adding a superscript retroflex approximant: , (see ).

In Dutch, this type of ''r'' is called 'Gooi ''r. It is named after het Gooi, a region of the Netherlands where Hilversum (the main centre for television and radio broadcasting) is located.

Features

Features of the voiced velar bunched approximant:

The body of the tongue is bunched up at the velum, rather than just approaching it as it is the case with the prototypical velar approximant.

Occurrence

Relation with and

Some languages have a voiced velar approximant that is unspecified for rounding, and therefore cannot be considered the semivocalic equivalent of either or its rounded counterpart . Examples of such languages are Catalan, Galician and Spanish, in which the approximant ''consonant'' (not ''semivowel'') unspecified for rounding appears as an allophone of .

Eugenio Martínez Celdrán describes the voiced velar approximant consonant as follows:

There is a parallel problem with transcribing the palatal approximant.

The symbol may not display properly in all browsers. In that case, should be substituted. In broader transcriptions,See e.g. . the lowering diacritic may be omitted altogether, so that the symbol is rendered , i.e. as if it represented the corresponding fricative.

The velar bunched approximant is typically written with or (in broader transcriptions: ), none of which capture its place of articulation. The prototypical , and are all unspecified for rounding like .

See also

* Index of phonetics articles

Notes

References

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External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Voiced Velar Approximant
Velar consonants
Pulmonic consonants
Voiced oral consonants
Central consonants